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"Astrid, we have to go," I told her, nudging her foot with my hand, careful not to startle her too much.
She woke up in panic sometimes. You had to ease her into consciousness.
"We have a Christmas tree to put up," I told her, nudging her again.
Her eyes snapped open, sleep immediately gone, letting out a grumble as she reached for the hands Camden extended to her.
"Why is it so cold?" she grumbled, folding deeper into her jacket as we walked the block toward our loft.
"Just a couple weeks ago you were saying how much you wanted snow," I reminded her.
"Yeah, but like... unless it is going to snow, this is completely unnecessary," she declared, a shiver racking her system.
"We're home," I told her when we got there, rolling my eyes as Cam pulled the door open for us. "That wasn't so bad."
"Says the woman without steel bars between her nipples. There are icicles on them, I swear," she told us, making Camden snort as we rode the elevator up.
I felt it the second we stepped inside, the lightness, the comfort, the familiarity, the relief.
Home.
And, what's more, I saw it in Cam and Astrid too, their shoulders and jaws losing their tension as we all went around, settling in.
Home.
After so many years without one - for all of us - it was a luxury none took for granted, a sanctuary where we found peace, where we separated life from work, where we could decompress and stop worrying.
Because nothing could touch us here.
Or, at least, that was what I had thought, a lie I had told myself day after day, month after month, giving myself a false sense of security.
Because, as it would turn out, our loft was not some magical place set apart from the rest of the world, some beautiful oasis no one else knew how to stumble across.
No.
It was just a home.
Just a loft in a city.
Where people could show up.
They could.
And one blustery winter day more than a full week after I forgot about his existence, he did.
He showed up at our door.
And that was when our crazy, but predictable little life started to chart a new course.
Even though none of us knew it at the time.THREERoderickA three-man operation.
A three-man operation had managed to outsmart The Henchmen MC.
Reign clearly wasn't pleased by the revelation, but had allowed me the opportunity to fix the situation myself, as I had asked.
It was my fuck up.
It was my job to fix it.
It hadn't been easy to track them down even after Lou had given us a name.
Liv.
She didn't have a full name.
She didn't have an address.
And she had refused to betray her any further than she already had, something Reign had surprisingly respected.
So Jstorm and Alex had been on it day and night, trying to track down these people who we only had vague descriptions of.
Liv was five-six like I had said, black-haired, brown-eyed, and some kind of Hispanic - Lou said they'd never gotten into it.
Occasionally, she had a woman with her, someone in her mid-twenties with brown hair and hazel eyes. And there was always a man in the car. Dark hair and eyes.
That was it.
That was all we had to go on.
It took almost a full week of endlessly researching the three on the dark web to come up with a neighborhood in the city.
"What are you doing?" Cy asked from the doorway of my room as I stuffed clothes and toothpaste into a duffel bag.
"Packing," I told him unnecessarily since he could see what I was doing. "I'm going to go stake out the neighborhood," I added. "Track them down. Make this right."
"What if they have already unloaded the gun?"
"I haven't figured that out yet. I'm going to go ahead and hope the damn things are just loaded in a vault somewhere or something."
"You sure you don't want backup? Even if it is a small operation. It is still three against one."
"I'm going to attempt to catch her alone."
"And... what? Beat the truth out of her? We both know you would never do that."
"No," I admitted, shaking my head. I'd gone this far in my life never putting a hand on a woman, and I didn't ever plan on breaking the streak. "But I will figure it out."
"We're only maybe an hour away," he reminded me. "If you need a hand, reach out. Doesn't make this any less your job."
"Thanks, man," I told him, meaning it.
"Did you tell your mom you aren't visiting this weekend?"
"I'm more worried about what she is going to say than I am worried about what Reign is gonna do if I make him lose Henry," I admitted.
"You gotta bring her and your sisters around someday."
"Why? Do you like being told you are too thin and need to start making babies?" I asked, rolling my eyes.
